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Video: Costly river closings leave barge traffic in limbo

Transcript of: Costly river closings leave barge traffic in limbo

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor:now, following the opening of floodgates designed to do just that, flood one area to spare another. There's still a lot of water on the way, and
high water
will be with us for weeks. Water will be straining against those levees and walls for some time. The
Mississippi River
is changing as the flooding is rearranging life on land and overrunning parts of the bayou. The experts now tell us the impact from these floods could go as high as $2 billion; a big hit for industries like catfish, cotton, corn, wheat, beans, rice, the shipping industry that relies on the river as a
central artery
. We want to start off again tonight with
NBC
's
Anne Thompson
. She's in
Melville
,
Louisiana
. Hey,
Anne
, good evening.

ANNE THOMPSON reporting:Good evening,
Brian
. These waters are the superhighway of commerce, and the flood is causing a traffic jam, and that's costing money. As the swollen
Mississippi
thunders south,
high water
forces the closing of the river to barge traffic at
Natchez
,
Mississippi
.
The Coast Guard
wants to reduce the
water pressure
on the levees, but in doing so it will increase pressure on the economy. The
Mississippi
is a crucial economic artery, the barges carrying the ingredients that nourish and power
America
and the world.

Mr. JOHN
MICHAEL RILEY
; It's not going to mean the end of barges going through, but it's definitely going to put a delay there. And anytime you have delays, there's cost incurred.

THOMPSON:Costs are already climbing downriver in
Louisiana
. Nine of the
Terrell River Service
's 10 barges are tied up. High waters closed the locks they use to get to the
Mississippi
and made the
Atchafalaya River
unsafe to navigate. Operations manager
Billy Martin
says the idle barges mean a loss of some $54,000 each day they don't work. How long can you go on without running your boats?

Mr. BILLY MARTIN:I don't know. We need those boats to be running as soon as possible.

STEPHENSVILLE, Louisiana — The move to protect New Orleans and Baton Rouge has come at the expense of more rural haunts like Stephensville, about 46 miles south of Baton Rouge, where a tiny elementary school has a bayou in back, the Atchafalaya River levee in front — and Mississippi River water coming at it.

"When you have a swamp at your back door and the Atchafalaya levee at your front door, you really are between a rock and a hard place," said Dan Rawls, principal of Stephensville Elementary School, just north of Morgan City.

And that's the dilemma facing many who live in the basin after the Morganza Spillway was opened Saturday to divert Mississippi River water onto rural land.

While levees along the Atchafalaya River are expected to hold, water in tributaries and bayous like the waterway behind the Stephensville school can't flow into the larger swollen river, causing "backwater" flooding.

But rather than give up, school staff, disaster response crews and the National Guard spent the last two weeks building a dirt levee behind the school. As for classes, they've been canceled for the rest of the school year.

Rawls, sweaty and red-faced, said he expects the school to flood, but hopes to mitigate the damage.

"We have no guarantees, just prepare the hardest you can and the best you can," he said. "We were identified as one of the first sites to go under. At least we had two weeks — people hit by tornadoes might not even have a few minutes."

If it does flood, it won't be the first time disaster has struck. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew destroyed the school building.

The Mississippi River waters could get to Stephensville and nearby Morgan City by Friday, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Tuesday.

Some 5,000 people have already evacuated and nearly 1,500 homes have had their power cut off as the controlled flooding meant to protect urban areas makes its way south toward the Gulf of Mexico, Jindal added.

A few families have moved into a farming community built for evacuees of Hurricane Katrina.

Twenty-six families have moved into the enclave because their towns were threatened by flooding from the Mississippi River and smaller rivers that spring from it.

The haven, informally known as Canadaville, was created by a Canadian industrialist and had a onetime population of around 200 residents displaced by the 2005 hurricane, but it had dwindled to just a handful by the time people from nearby towns began looking for a place to wait out the flood.

Tonya Nelson, 39, one of the few Katrina evacuees still there, said she recognized the look on their faces.

"I can understand what they're going through because I've been through it myself," she said.

The Mississippi River, swollen by snow melt and heavy spring rains, has caused widespread flooding as the crest of the water heads south.

The river is expected to rise nearly another foot in Vicksburg, Miss., before Thursday, when it should crest at 57.5 feet — 14.5 feet above flood level. On Monday, Vicksburg saw the level break the 56.2 feet record set in 1927.

The Yazoo Backwater Levee has a foot of earth remaining before waters begin lapping over it, said Marty Pope, senior hydrologist with the National Weather Service.

"You can see it right now ready to come over the top," said Ed McGuiness, a cattle farmer who lives near Vicksburg. "It is like a slow death."

To take pressure off levees surrounding heavily populated New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Army Corps of Engineers opened the key Morganza Spillway Saturday, choosing to flood more rural areas with fewer homes.

Open gates at the spillway allow 30 percent of the Mississippi's water into the Atchafalaya River. So with the Mississippi at record levels, the Atchafalaya is high, too.

Some of the evacuees have flocked to Canadaville, a 900-acre development that was officially named Magnaville when it opened a few months after Katrina because it was created by the head of Canadian auto parts maker Magna International.

Hurricane-displaced families could live rent-free if they passed a background check and followed the rules.

Before the flooding, only four of the 49 houses were being used.

"I think we're going to fill up," said Shane Carmichael, a Magna official who oversees the project.

Ashley Michot said she, her husband, and their three children left the Marksville area Monday, two days after water began to be released at the Morganza Spillway.

They got the evacuation order over the weekend, though water hadn't yet reached their house. Officials say most residents have heeded the call to evacuate.

"It's crazy. My grandpa's home he built 27 years ago is going to get wiped away," she said.

Elsewhere, residents were still packing up. Bernadine Turner, who lives in a mandatory evacuation zone near Krotz Springs, spent a third day Monday moving her things out. Water was not expected to reach the town about 40 miles west of Baton Rouge for several days, but most residents were taking no chances.

City surveyor Tony Moon works on a makeshift levee on the edge of the flooding Mississippi River with the temporarily shuttered Isle of Capri riverboat casino behind him, Friday, May 20 in Natchez, Miss. The river was forecast to crest at 62.1 feet, the highest level in Natchez recorded history.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
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Haley English, 7, cries into the arms of her mother, Naomi English, as she looks toward her submerged house in Vicksburg, Miss., on May 20.
(Rogelio V. Solis / AP)
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A precautionary sign warning of flooding is almost covered by Mississippi River floodwaters along the road to LeTourneau Technologies, in Vicksburg, Miss., on May 20.
(Rogelio V. Solis / AP)
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Workers build a 16-foot makeshift levee to protect the 100-year-old JM Jones Lumber Company on the edge of the flooding Mississippi River on May 20 in Natchez, Miss.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
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A corrections officer motors through floodwaters to pick up prisoners helping sandbag against the flooding in Vidalia, La., on May 19.
(Gerald Herbert / AP)
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Floodwaters from the Yazoo River creep across crops near Yazoo City, Miss., on May 19. The Yazoo backed up because of Mississippi River flooding.
(Dave Martin / AP)
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Guy and Diane Creekmore check out their flooded home on May 18 in Vicksburg, Miss. The Creekmores take daily trips out to see the damage to their home, which is currently filled with about 4 feet of floodwater. They also feed the possums and a raccoon that have been stranded on the roof of their home.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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A member of the Army Corps of Engineers looks over sandbags along the rising Mississippi River in Natchez, Miss., on Wednesday, May 18. Cargo was slowly moving along the bloated Mississippi River after a costly daylong standstill.
(Gerald Herbert / AP)
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Louisiana Army National Guard Sgt. Michael Leehy inspects new makeshift levee modifications on May 17 in Morgan City. The Morganza Spillway floodgates were opened for the first time in nearly forty years and have succussfully lowered the crest of the flooding Mississippi River, but towns like Morgan City expect to get hit by some of the diverted water.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
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Farmers work as floodwaters from the Mississippi River creep across their fields in Natchez, Miss., on May 17. Heavy flooding from Mississippi tributaries has displaced more than 4,000 in the state, about half of them upstream from Natchez in the Vicksburg area.
(Dave Martin / AP)
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April Bordelon helps her brother Justin Reech move a load of belongings from his home in Big Bend, La., into a community known as Canadaville, in Simmesport, La., on May 16. The community was formerly used by Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
(Gerald Herbert / AP)
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Brenda Hynum hugs her daughter Debra Emery as they watch floodwaters rise around Emery's mobile home in Vicksburg, Miss., on May 16. A sand berm around the trailer failed in the night and floodwaters from the rising Mississippi river rushed in. "We tried so hard to stop it. It goes from anger to utter disbelief that this could happen. I just want to go home," Emery said.
(Dave Martin / AP)
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A woman in Stephensville, La., ties sandbags on May 15 as people throughout the region race to protect their homes from rising floodwaters due to the opening of the Morganza Spillway.
(Sean Gardner / Reuters)
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Giant whirlpools the size of cars develop along the Atchafalaya River on May 15 due to the opening of the Morganza Spillway. Deputies warned people to get out as Mississippi River water gushing from floodgates for the first time in four decades crept ever closer to communities in Louisiana Cajun country.
(P.C. Piazza / The Lafayette Daily Advertiser via AP)
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Brittany Pearce, left, wipes her eyes while taking a break with Leanna Gresco after a long day of throwing sandbags in front of Pearce's grandparents' house in Stephensville, La. on, May 15.
(Sean Gardner / Reuters)
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National Guardsman Spec. Lionel Lefleur stands guard on top of a levee checking vehicles trying to enter town, May 15, in Butte LaRose, La. The National Guard was trying to allow only residents trying to evacuate their homes into the town.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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Brittany Ryder, 11, looks on as family members clear out their house during a mandatory evacuation, May 15, in Melville, La.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
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Mary Williams, right, looks on as family members pack the contents of her home, where she has lived since 1948, during a mandatory evacuation order, May 15, in Krotz Springs, La.
(Mario Tama / Getty Images)
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Arionne Ruffin, 7, pushes her cousin Josh Ruffin, 3, in a toy car while Alexis Rhodes, 8, plays in front of her family's home, May 15, in Bayou Black, La. The Rhodes, who have sandbagged around their home, purchased the house in February and are anxious about the impending flooding.
(Julia Rendleman / The Houma Courier via AP)
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Water diverted from the Mississippi River spills through a bay in the Morganza Spillway in Morganza, La., May 14. Water from the inflated Mississippi River gushed through a floodgate Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades and headed toward thousands of homes and farmland in the Cajun countryside, threatening to slowly submerge the land under water up to 25 feet deep.
(Patrick Semansky / AP)
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Flood waters from the Mississippi River pour over a levee on the Yazoo River, a tributary to the Mississippi River, north of Vicksburg, Miss., May 13. Thousands of residents who live along or near the river from Illinois, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana have been forced to evacuate, and thousands of acres of prime farmland have been covered by the record-setting rising waters.
(Chris Todd / EPA)
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City workers transport sandbags past the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad Station on May 12, in Vicksburg, Miss. The historic station is near the Mississippi River but the rest of downtown is on a bluff above.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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Residents of Vicksburg, Miss., take advantage of the raised railroad tracks north of the city to fish in the Mississippi River flood waters late Thursday, May 12. The fishermen along the tracks were treated to the sight of a 10-foot long alligator swimming in the waters.
(Rogelio V. Solis / AP)
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Mobile homes sit in water as high as their rooftops near Watkins, Tenn., May 10.
(Mike Brown / The Commercial Appeal via Zuma Press)
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Workers look for minor imperfections to correct before pinning down high density polyethylene covering on the backside of the Yazoo Backwater Levee in Vicksburg on May 10. The cover will act as a barrier if overtopping occurs and will inhibit backside erosion of the levee.
(Sean Gardner / Reuters)
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The Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn., as seen on April 21, 2010 in the satellite image on the left, and during it's crest on May 10, 2011, at right. The river reached 47.8 feet, just under the record of 48.7 feet set in 1937. Mud Island river park can be seen in the upper right corner.
(NASA)
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Melvina Jones carries a mirror through floodwaters as the swelling Mississippi River begins to surround her sister's home in Vicksburg, Miss. on Tuesday, May 10.
(Sean Gardner / Reuters)
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This industrial facility was flooded by the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn., on May 10. The river earlier that day crested in Memphis just short of its 1937 record.
(Dan Anderson / EPA)
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Water covers a gravestone, May 9, in Luxora Ark. The town sits along the Mississippi River where the water level is currently higher than the level of the town causing the ground to be saturated and leaving nowhere for the water in the town to drain.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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(Left) Workers use a crane to remove some of the Bonnet Carre Spillway's barriers in Norco, La. on May 9 in anticipation of rising floodwater. The spillway, which the Corps built about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans in response to the great flood of 1927, was last opened during the spring 2008. Monday marked the 10th time it has been opened since the structure was completed in 1931. The spillway diverts water from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain.

A cell block is seen alongside an inner levee along the Mississippi River at Angola State Prison in West Feliciana Parish, La. on May 9. A convoy of buses and vans transferred inmates with medical problems from Angola, which is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River.
(Patrick Semansky / AP)
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Reggie Smith wears a sandbag on his head in an effort to keep dry in a steady rain as he works to fill sandbags outside the RiverTown condominiums on May 7 on Mud Island in Memphis, Tenn.
(Jeff Roberson / AP)
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Jerry Brooks wades through his yard on May 6 in Bogota, Tenn. Heavy rains have left the ground saturated, rivers swollen, and have caused widespread flooding in Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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James Dunn gives his grandson Caleb Walker a paddle boat ride down the middle of a flooded street near his home on May 5 in Metropolis.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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Mississippi wildlife agent Hugh Johnson walks past a dead whitetail buck in Greenville, Miss., on May 5. Johnson said herds of deer, coyotes, some wild hogs and other wildlife are swimming to Greenville because of flooding on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River. This deer broke its neck when it tried to run through a chain fence.
(Rogelio V. Solis / AP)
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James Strayhorn carries groceries through a flooded neighborhood back to his home in Tiptonville, Tenn. on May 4. Heavy rains have left the ground saturated and have caused widespread flooding in Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky and Arkansas.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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Rita Gieselman leads the way as Phil Vanover follows after checking on his home in the 100 block of Chestnut Street in Rumsey, Ky. on May 4.
(John Dunham / AP)
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Debbie Ricketts, left, and her Point Township, Ind., neighbors, Bill, center, and Hank Cox basked in the sun on their old grain bin cement foundation that they dubbed "Gilligan's Island," on the afternoon of May 4.
(Denny Simmons / The Evansville Courier & Press via AP)
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Volunteers fill sandbags at the Pyramid Arena to prepare for rising floodwaters from the Mississippi River in Memphis, Tenn. on May 4. The National Weather Service is predicting a 48-foot crest of the Mississippi River on May 11.
(Lance Murphey / AP)
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David Lucas, left, and Lauren Lucas, right, comfort Carla Jenkins, owner of Vidalia Dock and Storage Co., after deciding to evacuate her business in Vidalia, La. on May 3 due to the threat of the predicted Mississippi River flood.
(Eric J. Shelton / The Natchez Democrat via AP)
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Floodwater engulfs a home near Wyatt, Mo., on May 3, after the Army Corps of Engineers blew a massive hole in a levee at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to divert water from the town of Cairo, Illinois. The diversion flooded about 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland and 100 homes.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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Roy Presson embraces his daughters Catherine and Amanda as they stand on the edge of State Highway HH looking out at their family farm in Wyatt, Mo., on Tuesday. The Presson home and 2,400 acres of land that they farmed was flooded by an engineered levee break.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
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An explosion lights up the night sky as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blows an 11,000-foot hole in the Birds Point levee in Mississippi County, Mo. on Monday. The breach lowered the flood levels at Cairo, Illinois, and other communities.
(David Carson / St. Louis Post-Dispatch via EPA)
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James Bindon waits for more loads of sand to be delivered to the riverfront in Vidalia, La., on May 9. Crews planned to use the sand to fill temporary levees in preparation for the predicted Mississippi River flood.
(Ben Hillyer / The Natchez Democrat via AP)
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Volunteers hastily build a wall of sandbags along Illinois 3 on May 8 in the community of Olive Branch.
(Alan Rogers / The Southern Illinoisan via AP)
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Anna Mayhood leaped to safety from her vehicle after the Broad Street Bridge collapsed beneath it on April 27 in Moriah, N.Y. Authorities said flooding closed nearly 60 roads across the Adirondacks, most of them in Essex County, scene of some of the worst damage.
(Lohr Mckinstry / The Press Republican via AP)
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Kenny Back pulls a boat with his sister Jessica Capp and wife Theresa Back to collect belongings from their parents' flooded home on April 27 in Old Shawneetown, Illinois.
(Stephen Rickerl / The Southern via AP)
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Volunteers place sandbags atop a temporary levee to fight back floodwaters as lightning from a thunderstorm is seen in the background on April 26, in Dutchtown, Mo.
(Jeff Roberson / AP)
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Four houses are surrounded by floodwaters from the Current River just outside Doniphan, Mo., on April 26. The area received several inches of rain in previous days.
(Paul Davis / Daily American Republic via AP)
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A rail service vehicle and a pickup sit stranded in floodwaters from the Black River south of Poplar Bluff, Mo., on April 25.
(Paul Davis / Daily American Republic via AP)
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Residents of Oak Glen Residential Community are assisted by rescue personnel as rising waters from a nearby creek forced them to evacuate their homes in Johnson, Ark., on April 25.
(Beth Hall / AP)
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Leon Gentry looks out over floodwaters that surround his garage after he spent the morning working to secure what he could from the rising water in Henderson, Ky., on April 25.
(Mike Lawrence / The Gleaner via AP)
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Kim Mada loads equipment into a truck to avoid rising water at Falcon Floats in Tahlequah, Okla., on April 25.
(Matt Barnard / Tulsa World via AP)
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Butler County, Mo., Sheriff Mark Dobbs stands on a levee along the Black River, right, on April 25, where floodwaters were running over into adjacent farmland southeast of Poplar Bluff. The levee broke in this location during a 2008 flood.
(Paul Davis / Daily American Republic via AP)
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Kasey Medley, right, stands on the front porch of her flooded home with her friend Erica Cass in Poplar Bluff, Mo., on April 26.
(Jeff Roberson / AP)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.